The total cost of the war—some 350 billion dollars—is a number so large that it is emotionally meaningless to me, but I spent a good deal of time contemplating the speed at which the war’s tally increased by tens, hundreds, and thousands of dollars—amounts of money to which I can relate.

The counter moved too fast for me to get a good measure of the rate of war spending using the sweep hand on my wristwatch, so I used a more elementary and less scientific method, and here’s what I discovered: the United States’ taxpayers spend twenty thousand dollars on the war every time I take a breath. Continue reading →

This week’s column is dedicated to Al Vogel, Jane Orbuch, Bob Miller and Robert Jamgochian, my science teachers at Mendocino High School. With gracious good humor they indulged me as I attempted to discredit the legacy of Charles Darwin, equipped as I was, with a mere middle school diploma.

If starting at the very beginning is, indeed, a very good place to start, then September is the time when high school biology classes grapple with the origins of life. For many teachers this means facing the objections of students and parents who consider evolutionary science to be an offense against God. Continue reading →